


a song called december

by Whitherward



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Party centric, Winter fic, not really christmas fic but christmas fic?, shameless 'please for the love of god let them be happy' fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 13:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whitherward/pseuds/Whitherward
Summary: The month of December is dark, and cold, and full of magic.





	a song called december

**Author's Note:**

> This is a shamelessly self-indulgent fluff fest and I apologise profusely.

\--

 

Christmas 1984 is quiet and perfect.

On Christmas Eve, the Party gathers at the Byers house. El is waiting for them, sitting primly on the couch next to Will. Max has arrived ahead of the boys, she and El are eyeing each other in silence from opposite sides of the room while Will dies inside trying to make conversation.

There is a commotion outside and El jumps to her feet as the boys pour through the door, and she is swiftly caught in a tight hug between Lucas and Dustin. Just as swiftly they move on to Will, and then Max, and El is left breathless under Mike’s gaze.

He always looks at her like he’s not quite sure he’s really seeing her. She notices the way he seeks her out when they’re all together, constantly. A moment of peace, followed by a start and a frantic look around, relaxing as soon as his eyes land on her. Lather, rinse, repeat.

She notices the way he sits close to her, legs pressed together. How his hand reaches for hers, or the way he hooks a finger into the hem of her sweater. Always needing to see her, touch her. Always worried, restless.

It kills her she doesn't know how to say _I’m here_ and make him believe it.

They’ve been allowed the briefest of time tonight, two hours, to gather and exchange gifts and just be together. Hopper and Joyce are bent over coffee in the kitchen, and everyone else is sprawled across one couch and on the floor, talking over each other and laughing.

Mike and El are sitting at one end of the sofa, his arm is around her shoulders and he squeezes her close to him while the others are distracted. When El looks up at him, he gestures with his eyes above them and she follows his gaze. There’s a sprig of some plant hanging from the ceiling. She brings her eyes back down to meet his.

In her limited life experience, she’s never seen someone look smug and uncomfortable at the same time, but he’s pulling it off with aplomb.

“Do you know what that is?” he asks, voice pitched low so only she can hear.

She nods – she can’t remember the name but Hop has pointed it out to her, great clumps of it growing in trees by the cabin – but doesn’t say anything.

“Do you know – there’s a tradition at Christmas, with mistletoe. Do you know it?” he darts his eyes quickly, nervously, to the kitchen.

El does know, she’s seen it on TV, but for reasons she can’t quite explain she wants him to tell her. She shakes her head and keeps gazing up at him.

Mike darts his eyes to the kitchen again. “If you’re under mistletoe at Christmas you’re – you’re supposed to, y’know, kiss the person you’re with.”

Tucked under his arm the way she is, she can feel his heart hammering against his ribs. He swallows once, hard, twice. She feels a great swell of something she cannot name, warm, dark.

“Okay,” she whispers, and he squeezes her a little tighter.

She lifts her chin and he ducks his head down and –

_“Wheeler!”_

Hopper’s sharp bark brings absolute silence down on the house for half a second as Mike freezes. The spell is broken by Joyce punching Hop in the arm, and loud shrieking cackles from the Party. Mike lets out a frustrated huff, and El feels his breath on her face as she quickly darts up and presses her lips to his.

The shrieking gets even louder, and El can hear Hop grumbling and Joyce scolding him, and she ducks her head back down and tucks it under Mike’s chin. She can practically _feel_ him glaring at everyone as he gives her another firm squeeze against his chest. She spends the rest of the evening like that, his chin resting on her head, until Hop announces it’s time for them to go home.

The Chief glares at Mike as they leave, and Mike lifts his chin defiantly and glares right back. They actually seem like they’re going to try to stare each other down until El rolls her eyes and gives a sharp tug on Hop’s sleeve.

There’s hugs all around (except between El and Max – the two of them sort of nod at each other as they pass) and El feels a little sad as she sits in the truck beside Hopper on the drive home. She turns the small wrapped package from Mike over in her hands, and slips a finger underneath one of the folds.

Hopper looks at her out of the corner of his eye but doesn’t scold her for opening it early, just turns the radio up a little.

El pulls the paper from the gift completely and presses her lips together as she feels another swell of that un-nameable feeling wash over her. It’s a small photograph of her and Mike together at the Snow Ball, in a simple wooden frame. On the bottom edge of the frame, in permanent marker, is written one word.

_Promise_.

 

\--

 

The first time El visits Will in New York it’s early-December and bitter cold.

She’s running from a lot of things, mostly herself, and she shows up on his doorstep unannounced, shivering, silent. Will lives in a tiny studio, cluttered with canvases and smelling vaguely of menthol cigarettes and white spirit, and they sleep huddled in the same bed (mattress on the floor, whatever).

He gathers all her pieces in his bare hands and if he doesn’t quite put them back good as new, he does a pretty good job of patching everything together with string and tape. It holds. For now, it’ll do.

El has always struggled with crowds, and the crush of the city is a little overwhelming, but Will navigates the streets deftly with her hand clasped firmly in his. As always, as everywhere, any place they are together is a safe place. She starts to relax. He wants to show her so many things, his enthusiasm is contagious and she spends hours and days being whisked from museum to gallery to park.

Will occasionally goes to an art class, and never seems to go to work. She knows he sells paintings here and there, not for very much, and she’s not entirely clear on how he keeps himself alive. They hang out with Jonathan a few times and she suspects he might slip Will money here and there, but she doesn’t ask and nobody says. Will does a lot of volunteer work and he’s actively involved in a couple of local support groups which seem to bring him an equal measure of satisfaction and strain.

He keeps odd hours. He’s always been something of a night owl and he’s leaning hard into this trait as an adult. El supposes it has to do with the whole starving artist thing he has going on (he hasn’t had a nightmare since she’s been staying with him, nor for a long time before – this much she knows without being told).  It doesn’t bother her, she likes the night time in the city, the lights, the feeling of disappearing. She joins him on long walks in the small hours, visits to all night diners with bad coffee and waitresses that know his name. They go to a carol service at a church one night and she sits with her head on his shoulder and listens with her eyes closed.

When his electricity is shut off because he hasn’t paid his bill, they sit on the floor of his cramped studio passing a bottle of cheap wine back and forth by the light of a dozen guttering candles. Long past midnight they talk and laugh, and she studies him in the dim light - he smiles with his whole face, deep creases forming at the corners of his eyes. He's talking with his hands as he tells a story, animated. His eyes are bright and there is a light flush on his cheeks, and if this is from the wine or the cold she cannot tell but he looks better than she's ever seen him look. He's thriving here. It makes her warm all over, a kind of serenity that settles deep in her heart. 

As they round the twentieth of the month, Will gently chides and chivvies her into going home for Christmas. He surprises her as she’s getting ready to leave by heaving a tightly packed holdall over his shoulder and announcing he’s going with her and they huddle together in the back of the bus, alternating between sleeping and talking quietly with their heads together. 

She drags him through the front door, giggling, bringing a flurry of cold and snow with them, at 6am. 

Joyce cries when she sees him.

 

\--

 

Lucas breaks his ankle two days before Christmas. He and El are doing a little holiday shopping - Mrs Sinclair had sent him out with a list and he'd swung by the Hopper house on his way to the mall, not needing El for anything in particular other than her company.

El and Lucas have made an unlikely shopping duo over the years. Lucas is generally sent to do the grocery shopping for his mom and El has taken to doing it for Hop and Joyce. She likes going through the aisles, picking things off the shelves, ticking them off her list. She likes counting out her coins and folding her receipt carefully into her purse. It's an incredibly mundane, everyday activity and she takes enormous enjoyment from it. Lucas for his part does not enjoy grocery shopping, but he enjoys El's enjoyment of it, and the time they spend walking up and down the aisles chatting.

So when he knocks on the door and asks if she's free to help him do a little last minute shopping, her face lights up and she grabs her coat, yelling over her shoulder to whoever happens to be in earshot as she pulls the door closed behind them.

It’s not like their Saturday mornings - it's busy as hell, people frantically trying to finish their Christmas shopping, but they're an able team and a combination of El's small frame darting in between people (she's all elbows) and Lucas' sheer bulk wading through (not as tall as Mike but twice as broad) and they make rapid progress.

They're walking back to the car, high on their achievement, when it happens.

Lucas, loaded with bags, slips on an unseen patch of ice. He's behind El so she doesn't see, can't catch him, only hears him hit the ground. She turns to see him gritting his teeth (he doesn't cry out, not in his nature) and staring with something like grim fascination at his ankle, which she is horrified to see bent at a slightly unnatural angle.

“Lucas!” she gasps, dropping to her knees beside him.

“I think it's broken,” he grits out. “You're gonna need to drive me to the hospital.”

El's heart drops through her stomach and she shakes her head, “I can't drive!”

“You'll be ok, i'll talk you through it.”

She gives him a wild look but doesn't argue. People are staring at them as they pass on the way to their cars but no one has stopped to ask if they need any help ( _assholes_ , thinks El) so it looks like they're on their own.

Wrapping Lucas' arm over her shoulders, she plants her feet and heaves up. She tries to look like she's struggling under the weight of him and the bags as they hobble to the car - in reality she's taking very little of his weight physically.

When they're safely deposited in the car, which takes not a little manoeuvring to fold Lucas into the passenger seat without jostling his ankle, El sits in the driver’s seat and stares at the wheel like it's just grown a head and started talking to her.

Lucas side eyes her. “You can do this.”

“I can't.” Her heart has migrated into her throat. She's never driven before.

“You can. Sorry to tell you Ellie, but you don't have a lot of choice right now.”

The nickname draws her attention, and she looks at him. He's holding himself rigid, and sweat is starting to bead on his forehead. He's in pain, trying not to show it. She swallows hard and squares her shoulders.

“Okay,” she says, with more resolve than she feels. “Okay, what do I do?”

“Right, first scoot your seat forward so you can reach the pedals okay...”

.

The drive is a slow one but if Lucas is frustrated he doesn't show it. El is the only one of the Party without a license - she doesn't like driving, she finds it too much to concentrate on and she is too easily panicked. Hop tried her around a field in the pickup a few times but she eventually became so agitated that she fritzed the battery by accident, and he gave up.

So to say that driving on an actual road with actual cars is stressful is a terrific understatement. She's gripping the steering wheel so hard that all the blood has left her hands and Lucas has to periodically remind her to breathe so she doesn't pass out and kill them both. She lets out a frightened squeak every time another car comes within fifty feet of them, is totally incapable of going above twenty miles per hour and when she has to brake instead of coming smoothly to a stop they are both jerked sharply forwards in their seats (she can't believe Max did this when she was _twelve_ , what the _fuck_ ).

Lucas is leaning forward slightly, gripping his shin with both hands (his own fingers turned bloodless) and sweating profusely now - but his deep voice remains calm and even as he talks and encourages and cajoles her through the journey.

When they eventually pull into the hospital parking lot, her knees are shaking so badly she thinks it's a shame she can't use her powers to hold _herself_ up.

But they're here and in one piece (sort of) so she counts it as a win.

Inside the hospital is a long wait. The waiting room is crammed with people with all manner of injuries - but the awkward angle Lucas' ankle is bent at gets him bumped up the queue for x-ray at least, and it's not too long before he's laid back on a gurney drugged to the eyeballs with painkillers waiting for a doctor to come and see him.

Now the adrenaline has left El her limbs feel heavy but she can't relax. Her whole system is on high alert. She hates hospitals. She hates people in white coats and the smell of disinfectant and the snap of latex gloves. She thinks she might vomit. Or faint. Or blow something up.

Somewhere in his medicated stupor, Lucas reaches out and takes her hand and holds it against his side. When she looks at him he doesn't open his eyes but he gives her a little squeeze.

She closes her own eyes and breathes evenly, focussing only on the warmth of his hand.

Years from now, in another city, when Mike is hit by a drunk driver, it will be Lucas who knocks on her door in the middle of the night and wraps her in his arms. It will be Lucas who drives her to the hospital, Lucas who sits beside her all the long hours of the night, holding her hand and holding her together. In those awful, endless hours she will once more close her eyes and focus on the warmth of his hand on hers.

She won't feel his desperate panic. She won't see him step into the men’s room and cry great heaving sobs when the doctor tells them Mike came through surgery and should recover well. She will know only his strong and steady presence, and this will be what keeps her from coming apart at the seams.

For now though, she sits with him while he doses and her skin itches so badly she wants to peel it off. When they come to set his ankle, he waves her away and she takes the out he gives her only a little guiltily, goes to the nurse’s station to call his parents to pick them up.

She insists to Mr Sinclair she doesn't need a ride home - she'll walk over to the Wheeler's from Lucas' house and ask Mike to take her. She wants to see him anyway - even though Lucas is fine, and she's fine, and everything is _fine_ , she feels unsteady and she wants nothing more than to wrap herself around Mike's lanky frame and cling for a while until the ground stops moving under her feet.

First though she helps transfer the bags into the house, and then walks on the other side of Lucas as Mr Sinclair helps him up the path, Lucas holding his fresh plaster cast off the slushy ground so it doesn't get wet. She has one hand on his waist, steadying, surreptitiously taking just a fraction of his weight, helping them along just a little.

In the doorway Lucas winks at her before drawing her into a huge bear hug.

“Thanks buddy,” he says lowly in her ear. “I know that was tough for you.”

El shrugs awkwardly and squeezes him round the middle, “I'd do anything for you.”

“I know,” he says, and she feels him grin into her hair before he smacks a big dramatic kiss on her cheek.

Pulling out of the hug, she wipes at her cheek in equally dramatic fashion and then wipes her hand down the front of his sweater.

“Gro-ooo-osss.” She draws out the word so it has three syllables, waving as she walks backwards down the front path.

.

When Mike drops her home later that evening, Mrs Sinclair has already called Joyce to sing El's praises. Joyce fusses her a little as she comes through the door and makes her go sit down with the promise of hot cocoa on the way.

El flops heavily down on the couch beside (on top of, gets shoved off) Will while Hop regards her over the top of his paper. She remembers with startling force that her father is, in fact, a police officer.

She eyes him warily. “Am I in trouble?”

“Are you in trouble.” He repeats this monotone but betrays no other emotion.

“I drove without a license. Are you mad?” Next to her, pressed against her side, she can feel Will shift slightly - pretending to focus on the TV but she knows he's getting ready to fight her corner if he needs to.

Hop stares for a few seconds like she’s speaking in tongues, then snorts and goes back to his paper.

"No, I’m not mad. You did the right thing." Turns the page, clears his throat. "Proud of you, kiddo"

She relaxes fully for the first time that day and sinks back into the couch. Joyce brings her cocoa, and El lays her head on Will's shoulder to watch the rest of whatever dumb movie he’s been watching. And for the time being all is well.

 

\--

 

Dustin is the first of all of them to get married, on New Year’s Eve. His bride comes to him with snow melting in her dark hair.

It’s a small, intimate ceremony conducted in the early evening , candlelit and golden. El watches with tears in her eyes clutching Mike’s hand, and feels him finger the ring he gave her not two months before.

Because it’s Dustin, the reception that follows this beautiful ceremony is absolutely insane.

It doubles as a New Year’s party for everyone in attendance, so nobody feels like holding back. In the tried and true tradition of weddings everywhere, the bride and groom spend much of the reception apart, circulating amongst guests.

Eventually though, Dustin gravitates back to the Party. Someone has produced a set of dice from somewhere, Mike sets up at the head of the table with some hastily scribbled on paper napkins and a floral arrangement acting as a screen, and they find themselves in a short, ridiculous and ill thought out campaign in the middle of Dustin’s actual _wedding_.

The new Mrs Alice Henderson herself appears and deposits herself in Dustin’s lap.

“Alright, so which one of you brought these dice and decided it would be a great idea to hijack my wedding reception with your nerd game?” This is said without malice, an amused glint in her eye.

There’s an awkward silence around the table as everyone glances at each other. Dustin clears his throat.

“Uh, babe that might have been me.” Dustin at least has the good grace to look slightly sorry.

His wife stares at him for a moment, incredulous, and then throws her head back and laughs.

.

Later, close to midnight, El steps outside for some air. The night is cold and clear and she breathes deep, grateful for the brief respite from the noise and heat inside.

She hears the door open and close behind her. She turns expecting Mike and is surprised instead to see Dustin. He looks thoroughly dishevelled, bowtie hanging loose around his neck, top buttons undone, curly hair even wilder than usual. But he’s smiling as he walks toward her, hands in pockets.

“Getting a little too much for you Ellie?” He comes level with her, and the use of her old nickname makes her smile.

“Just taking a moment.”

Back in their schooldays, she would sometimes get overwhelmed with the people and the noise and everything she had to remember and think about and do. Dustin had often been the one to rescue her in these moments, taking her off to the library or the AV room, somewhere quiet where he would sit with her and focus her on one single thing. It could be the book she was reading that week, or the fact that he liked the color of her sweater, or the cool thing he had learned about that very day.

These quiet conversations with Dustin were some of her favorite memories growing up. He always had time for her, even when she wasn’t having a panic attack. He always wanted to share what he was interested in with her, and he always wanted to hear about things she thought were interesting. Even in adulthood, they carve out the time to chat, just the two of them. They have passed many an afternoon over a pot of coffee, setting the world to rights.

El is so thankful to see him settled with such a lovely new wife. She knows if he had fallen for a girl who in El’s estimation hadn’t been good enough for him, she never would have been able to hide her opinion from him.

Dustin is fidgeting a little now, not looking at her. “El, I wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it?” El asks quietly.

He rocks back on his heels, looking right down at the ground, considering.

“I wanted to ask if it would be okay – I wanted your permission…” he breaks off, hesitating.

“Dustin?” El prompts, but there’s a pit forming in her stomach. She knows what he’s going to ask.

“El, I want to tell Alice about…well, everything. About you.” He looks at her now, face open and serious. “But I won’t do that unless you’re okay with it.”

El considers for a long moment. She’s been wondering when this day would come. It had to eventually, if not Alice then someone else. They couldn’t stay their tiny tight-knit group forever. Some spouse, some person coming in from the outside. Alice was an outsider.

She _was_ an outsider. Now she was Dustin’s wife.

“Dustin, I don’t want you to keep secrets from your wife for my sake”

“It’s not my secret to tell. I don’t want to hide things from her either but I would never, _never_ tell anyone this without your blessing.”

El nods, folding her arms tightly around herself. Dustin carries on,

“I hope you know Ellie, I would never put you in danger, and I would never want to do anything to hurt you or make you uncomfortable. And you totally do not have to answer now, there is one hundred percent no pressure here. But you can trust Alice, I promise. We can trust her.”

El looks at him, and she can see the shadow of the twelve year old she first knew in his face. He’s so sincere, and so worried about her even now on his wedding night. Her dear friend. El takes a deep breath.

“Dustin, if you trust her, then I trust you.” Her voice only shakes a little. “You can tell her.”

She knows it’s the right call when his whole body just slumps in relief, like a huge weight has been lifted off him. He draws her into the tightest hug she’s ever been given, almost crushing her, and she clings back just as tightly.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “I love you. Thank you.”

They stand like that a while, clutching each other, before pulling apart. El clears her throat as a thought occurs to her.

“Won’t she be upset you waited till after the wedding to tell her about this?”

Dustin rolls one shoulder, shrugging, hands back in pockets. “You might be surprised, she knows something happened with all of us.”

At El’s look, he shakes his head. “Not anything specific, but she’s heard that old story about Will going missing, and she knows there’s something she doesn’t know. She’s not stupid.”

El smiles at this. “You wouldn’t love her if she was stupid.”

Dustin gives a lopsided grin. “I wouldn’t love her if she was stupid.”

It’s at this moment the doors open and people start spilling out. Dustin glances back and reaches out a hand. “My lady!” He calls as Alice approaches.

From inside, she can hear the DJ counting down to midnight. Mike appears at her side just at the countdown reaches zero and she doesn’t have time to say anything before he pulls her close and kisses her, slow and easy.

As fireworks start above them, El wraps her arms around Mike’s waist and lays her head on his chest. His arm comes around her, squeezing her tight, chin coming to rest on her head, and they stand with the rest of the Party to see in the New Year and everything it brings.

 

\--

 

Max thinks El is the biggest badass in the known universe. She has a tiny bit of hero worship, she’s not embarrassed to admit. This is overtaken by a lot of pity when she hears a bit more about her life and upbringing, and then less pity once she starts to get to know her. Getting to know her is a bit of a rocky road, admittedly.

El takes a while to warm up, but once she realises that Max is not her replacement (and that Max would literally sooner set herself on fire than pursue romantic interests with one Mike Wheeler) it doesn’t take too long for them to become thick as thieves, and El thinks Max is just the coolest person she’s ever met.

(At first Hop is pleased that El has a girlfriend to hang out with instead of a bunch of boys. He’s less pleased when he gets to know Max a little, but while he’s trying to figure out if Max is a Bad Influence or a Good Influence on his kid, it becomes all too clear they are a bad influence on each other, that it’s far too late to separate them, and this is his life now).

On this particular Friday evening, Max and El are trekking through the woods, almost to their knees in snow, scouting out the perfect Christmas tree. Hopper ‘retired’ from tree duty a few years back, and it became a thing that Jonathan took El and Will to do together when he was home for the holidays ( _sibling bonding_ , Hopper enunciates carefully to a sceptical Joyce, nothing at all to do with not wanting to be dragged around in the freezing cold by hyper teenagers deliberating for hours between _literally identical_ trees).

This year, however, Jonathan will not make it home until Christmas Day – finishing work late Christmas Eve and then driving through the night from New York – and Will is laid up with the flu. Hopper is still refusing to go on tree duty, instead instructing El to take ‘that linebacker’ out to cut a tree down (meaning Lucas). Lucas for his part is jointly obsessing over some new bit of electrical kit with Dustin and Mike and all three are refusing to leave the sanctity of the Wheeler’s basement like the mouth breathers they all are.

El is especially betrayed by Mike, and the first-time failure of her puppy dog eyes to move him to do her bidding. His claim that since Lucas and Dustin don’t want to go out meaning that he would be useless alone to help her falls slightly flat – he might not be athletic like Lucas or stocky and solid like Dustin, but his enormous height does carry with it a certain associated strength, and what kind of heavy lifting does he think he’s going to have to do with her around anyway.

She leaves them with this and several other thoughts as she flounces out of the basement and goes home to sulk.

Max enters the picture an hour or so later, when she calls El up bored to ask if she wants to hang out. After listening patiently to El rant about the boys, she comes back with a simple and slightly hurt sounding “Well why the fuck didn’t you ask me?” and El is absolutely dumbfounded by her own stupidity.

A little while after this and Max has arrived (skidding her car sideways up El’s driveway on packed snow and ice, and thank god Hopper wasn’t at home to see _that_ ) they’ve taken two flashlights and a walkie-talkie in case of emergency and they set off into the woods alone at night because, as Max archly points out, that’s never gone wrong for any of them, ever.

It does not take El long to remember why she did not turn to Max for help. Max hates snow. Max hates cold. Max hates nature and generally, like, _Indiana_. Wading through snowy woods is not Max’s idea of a good time.

“Oh. My. Gooood.” Max sounds like she’s about to die, despite the fact they have been out here for approximately thirty minutes.

“I just want to remind you that you volunteered to come out here with me.” El tosses over her shoulder.

“I know.”

“In fact,” El says, “I wouldn’t even be out here right now if it wasn’t for you.”

“I _know_.”

“So, you know, it might be nice if you sounded a little less like I was doing this specifically to hurt you.”

El turns in time to see Max fling her hands up at the sky. “I thought we were gonna walk down to the edge of your back yard, cut something down and drag it into the house. I didn’t realise we were going full ‘Scott of the Antarctic’ out here!”

El shines her flashlight directly in Max’s face ( _“hey, fuck you!”_ )

“I know you have definitely heard tree-hunt stories before, you so knew what to expect!”

“El, please!” Max groans, throwing her head back. “I am begging you, I can’t feel my hands. My legs are going to have to be amputated at the knee!”

“Oh for the love of – ”

“Can we just pick something from within a twenty-foot radius before we both die out here!”

El rolls her eyes heavily at this but Max does look truly miserable and El can feel her traitorous heart squeeze in sympathy. Swinging round in a slow circle, both girls cast their flashlight beams over the surrounding trees. El settles on one (“Hallelujah!” shouts Max) and they stand back slightly to consider the logistics.

A little nudge from El sends the tree falling with a sharp crack that reverberates eerily all around them and as they listen to the echo fade to silence, they are both reminded starkly that they are two seventeen year old girls alone in the forest.

El gives a wry smile. “Don’t worry, nothing out here is scarier than me.”

Since it’s not a good idea to walk around with a levitating tree, El grabs one of the lower branches and drags it over the snow. Max tramps over with all the grace of Bambi on ice and grabs the top, so they are half carrying, half dragging it between them, and they head for home bickering the entire way.

(“I just want you to know you have contributed nothing.”

“I have _contributed_ the pleasure of my company!”)

Hopper arrives home just as they are shoving the tree through the back door, taking out two picture frames in the process. He stares at them nonplussed as they drag it through to the living room, leaving a trail of pine needles and melted snow in their wake. Both girls have to bite back laughs when Joyce comes downstairs to see what the commotion is and says “Jim, aren’t you going to help?”

When the tree is standing in the corner of the living room, still dripping and waiting to be decorated, El and Max collapse on the sofa still huddled in their coats and scarves.

“See,” Max says. “Who needs a man!”

El snorts but doesn’t comment further. They sit in companionable silence for a while until Max turns to her again.

“So, I have an idea.”

.

When Lucas steps out of the Wheeler’s basement door, he is hit square in the face by a snowball thrown with incredible accuracy and alarming force. His cry of surprise brings Mike and Dustin running and then all of them are scrambling for cover under a barrage of snowballs.

Confusion reigns until they hear two very familiar voices laughing from behind a hedge, and one of them calls out, “Fight back you cowards!

From there it’s all-out war until the ground is churned up and a large patch of snow on the Wheeler’s lawn has turned muddy brown from pristine white. As they head back into the house for late hot chocolates, Lucas is carrying Max piggy-back and Mike has El thrown over one shoulder. Dustin, bringing up the rear, aims one last snowball that hits Max in the back of the neck. Max shrieks in outrage and Dustin finds himself mysteriously tripped, faceplanting in the snow.

“El, why!” Dustin calls in mock anguish.

“Yeah, that’s my girl!” hoots Max, fist raised triumphantly in the air.

 

\--

 

El's second baby is born two weeks before Christmas.

It's a complicated delivery, the latter half is mostly a blur of bright lights and the copper-sharp smell of blood as she drifts in and out of consciousness. The things which dominate her memory of the night are the feelings of helpless terror that her baby won’t make it and there not being a single thing she can do. The desperate relief when she hears that first thin cry. The realisation she’s still haemorrhaging, the fear and understanding she may not be around to watch her children grow up.

Mike pressing his face into her abdomen when she wakes up, tears soaking through her hospital gown, her hand crushed almost painfully in his as he clutches her.

It’s a blissful relief to everyone when, after seven nights in hospital, Mike is able to take them both home.

She wakes in the pre-dawn gloom, on the sofa with a crick in her neck. She's propped on all sides by pillows to keep her comfortable (which she is not) with a blanket thrown haphazardly over her, awkwardly top-to-tail with Mike who has one long leg stretched out, foot digging into her hip, and one hanging off the side.

It’s Christmas morning.

Her shirt is still open and the baby is sleeping on her bare chest, and El revels in the warmth emanating from her tiny solid weight.

Craning her neck slightly, trying not to move, she squints and can make out Mike’s sleeping form in the dim glow of the Christmas lights. Lydia has appeared at some point during the night and is asleep in the crook of Mike's arm, his perfect miniature at two years old with her dark curls and the spray of freckles across her nose.

They have guests coming over later - the Wheelers and the Hoppers - but this time, in the warmth and dark and quiet of their living room, is just for them. El feels a huge swell in her chest, an overwhelming love for her little family. How could she ever want anything more.

Mike opens his eyes then, as if he can feel her watching him, and for a moment he just watches her back. He cranes his neck in the same way she just has – that ‘I need to move but I am desperate not to wake this sleeping child’ way known intimately to all parents – and looks down at his eldest daughter, then back at El and the new baby.

“You feeling okay?” he murmers, just loud enough for her to hear.

She nods.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

 

-


End file.
